Mobile electronic devices have become a necessity due to their high portability and have developed into multimedia devices that provide various services, such as voice and video call functions, information input and output functions, a camera function, data transmission and reception, and the like. Furthermore, a mobile electronic device that integrates and supports various user functions has recently emerged. Accordingly, e-commerce using a portable electronic device has becomes possible, and the volume and form of e-commerce have also diversified.
As e-commerce becomes possible as described above, e-commerce business operators are issuing mobile coupons in order to facilitate the selling of products and increase competitiveness against other business operators. The mobile coupon is also called a coupon code, a promotion code, a shopping code, a discount code, and the like. A user may download a mobile coupon from the server of a mobile coupon selling-dedicated business operator or the server of a corresponding product seller, and may store the downloaded mobile coupon in his or her mobile electronic device.
In contrast, when a user attempts to use a plurality of mobile coupons stored in his or her mobile electronic device, the user may feel inconvenienced because the user needs to access a corresponding web page, separately search for a mobile coupon that is applicable to the web page, and directly input a mobile coupon code to the web page although the mobile coupon has been searched. Furthermore, it is difficult to search for a mobile coupon that is included in an e-mail or a text message received from an Internet site to which a user has subscribed if the mobile coupon is not separately stored.
Therefore, a need exists for a method for providing a mobile coupon and a mobile electronic device supporting the same to collect information about mobile coupons that are downloaded over the Internet from e-mail and text messages, to search for information about a mobile coupon stored in a mobile electronic device, and to output information about a retrieved mobile coupon to a user.
The above information is presented as background information only to assist with an understanding of the present disclosure. No determination has been made, and no assertion is made, as to whether any of the above might be applicable as prior art with regard to the present disclosure.